John 17:20-23 (NIV, Jesus Prays for All Believers): “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe through their (the disciples) message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as You are in Me and I am in You. May they also be in Us so that the world may believe that You have sent Me. I have given them the glory that You gave Me, that they may be one just as We are One–I in them and You in Me–so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that You sent Me and have loved them even as You have loved Me.”
I’ve been thinking about these verses a lot recently. There are two awesome things that these verses tell us:
- Jesus prayed for us
- Jesus desired the Church to be unified
In John 17, Jesus prayed for Himself and the work on the cross that was ahead of Him. He prayed for His disciples, who had walked with Him for 3 years and would be the ones to continue on sharing the story after Jesus’s work was done on earth. But then He goes on to pray for “those who will believe through their message.” Friends, that is us! Jesus, before going to the cross, prayed for you and me, because we are included in “those who will believe through their message.”
Each and every person who believes the message of Jesus does so because of the faithfulness of the disciples (not just the Twelve but all who were witnesses of Jesus’s life) to relay the stories and the message of the Gospel through the years. And Jesus prayed that it would be so, for us to believe the message that would be passed down and to join the work of passing it along.
Not only that, but Jesus also prayed for the Church to be unified. I use the “big C Church” here to clarify the meaning. This is not just your local church congregation that you belong to and participate in. The Greek word would be Ekklesia, the Church as a whole–the Bride of Christ (Ephesians 5:29-30). The early Church had no denominational differences–those came about later in history because of human corruption and deviation from the original faith that came from Jesus.
Jesus longed then and still longs today for there to be unity in His Bride, the Church. He prayed that we would be one, just as He and the Father are One.
Our purpose is to shine the truth to the world that God sent Jesus, who made a way for us to also be one with Him. This is our Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20), our task here on earth. This is what being a unified Church should look like.
Sadly, we fall short so often that the Church has received a bad reputation. But change starts with you and me. Here and now we have the power to return to the original design that Jesus prayed for us to follow. Every great fire begins with a spark. We have the choice to be that spark–or not.
I personally don’t want to miss out on the blessings that Jesus prayed over those of us who would believe in the future. I am thankful that, even when the next step on His path led Him to the cross, He still paused to think of and pray for those who would believe in Him after the horrors to come.
He tenderly prayed for you and me, friends. Let’s walk into the blessing before us and live and walk in the unity Jesus desires for His Bride.
Blessings,
~Lynne
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